Nigel Brennan
Overview Nigel Brennan was Amanda Lindhout's traveling companion throughout the entire book. After leaving his home country of Austrailia to explore the world, he met up with Lindhout, and together, they explored the world. He was captured along with Lindhout and their crew while on a visit to Somalia. He was freed after 15 months and set off to live a happy life. Personality: Nigel is certainly an interesting character. Being from Austrailia, you would expect him into have a wild personality, which leads the reader to show interest in his persona. Nigel has this type of personality, but with a more English side as well. In the book, he stated that he had lived in England for a while, and it had changed his personality as well. When Nigel is first introduced into this story, he can remind you of a worn-down traveler looking for a place to stay. As the story contiunes, Nigel begins to warm up to everyone around him, especially Amanda. Here, it is obvious that they both have feelings for each other. Unfortunately, Nigel shows a more secretive side, one usually maintained by the average con-man, when he reveals that he has a wife, Jane, in London. From here, Nigel maintains his old personality, but has a more secretive side now. During this part of the story, it was hard to tell if Nigel was hiding anything else from the characters as well as the reader. 'Hostage Experience:' During his time as a hostage in Somalia, Nigel went through a lot. At first, he found it hard to accept that he had been captured ad was being held by Somalian insurgents for ransom. Nigel often cried and wished that he was only dreaming. A week into his kidnapping, Nigel started to lose. He soon started to lose his old, brave self, and soon became cautious. He became a little paranoid, afraid of the fact that he would soon die, separated from his family. When Amanda suggested that they convert to Islam to save themselves, he was wary of the idea. Their captors were members of the Islamic relgion, and they take it very seriously. If they were caught pretending, they would be executed. This is what Nigel was afraid of. He did, however, agree to become Muslims just to live a little longer. As the weeks passed by, Nigel lost his paranoia and eventually accepted his fate. He became more relaxed, and was friendly with his captors. But deep inside, a part of him wanted to kill his captors for what they had done to him. He did nothing of major importance until he was persuaded by Lindhout to try and escape. Brennan regained his paranoia and disagreed. After their escape failed, Brennan was more relaxed. He kept up this relaxed self until he was freed. After being freed, his personality slowly came back. However, he is still haunted by his experiences. Nigel's Relationships Amanda Lindhout: Brennan first meets Lindhout at a cafe in Afghanistan. They became traveling partners, and eventually, that developed into friendship. It nearly developed into something more, but Nigel stopped after revealing that he had a wife, Jane. They eventually ended their friendship, only for it to be rekindled on their trip to Somalia. While in captivity, they still remained friends, drawn even closer together due to the fact that there were no other "friendly" people around. Within 5 months of this, Nigel slowly began to drift away. He was not abused the way Amanda was, and he took comfort in knowing that because of his gender, he would never be treated like them. Eventually, they lost all contact with each other, as